To host a website on the internet, an individual or company would need their own computer or server.[7] As not all companies had the budget or expertise to do this, web hosting services began to offer to host users' websites on their own servers, without the client needing to own the necessary infrastructure required to operate the website. The owners of the websites, also called webmasters, would be able to create a website that would be hosted on the web hosting service's server and published to the web by the web hosting service.
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If you require a lot of functionality and versatility from your website, you’ll benefit from programs and applications that can help you build your site. Our Web hosting plans give you access to free, server-side applications that can be used to develop and customize your website, including popular Content Management System (CMS) applications like WordPress® and Joomla!®. You can even add a Dedicated IP if you plan to add an SSL Certificate later.
Until 1991, the Internet was restricted to use only "...for research and education in the sciences and engineering..."[1][2] and was used for email, telnet, FTP and USENET traffic—but only a tiny number of web pages. The World Wide Web protocols had only just been written[3][4] and not until the end of 1993 would there be a graphical web browser for Mac or Windows computers.[5] Even after there was some opening up of internet access, the situation was confused until 1995.[6]
5. HostwindsHostwinds is considered as one of the best web hosting companies, for not only does it provide 99.999% uptime, it also offers superb 24/7 customer support. It boasts of 100% satisfaction rate for its users with a solid 60-day money-back offer. Its two data centers in Dallas, Texas, and Seattle, Washington have modern architectural design tailored for maximum data protection with natural cooling systems and a redundant A+B power system.Hostwinds provides SSL certification, VPN, and Minecraft SSD server hosting, on top of its regular web hosting packages that offer business hosting, shared web hosting, Windows VPS, Linux VPS, and dedicated servers. Its network design has a redundant communication pathway that secures availability and continued access should there be a path failure. In addition, it has an automatic failover mechanism that reroutes to new system pathways, should a server or pathway be compromised. Hostwinds offers its enterprise-level service and tools for as low as $3.29/month.
As with backups, SSL certificates are not a necessary feature your web host must offer, this is especially so since companies like Let’s Encrypt offer them for free. However, if you’re looking to streamline the process of getting your site fully equipped and online in no time, the extra convenience of getting this certificate from your web hosting provider is a nice add-on.

The most basic is web page and small-scale file hosting, where files can be uploaded via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or a Web interface. The files are usually delivered to the Web "as is" or with minimal processing. Many Internet service providers (ISPs) offer this service free to subscribers. Individuals and organizations may also obtain Web page hosting from alternative service providers.

^ March 16, 1992 memo from Mariam Leder, NSF Assistant General Counsel to Steven Wolff, Division Director, NSF DNCRI (included at page 128 of Management of NSFNET, a transcript of the March 12, 1992 hearing before the Subcommittee on Science of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, One Hundred Second Congress, Second Session, Hon. Rick Boucher, subcommittee chairman, presiding)
The host may also provide an interface or control panel for managing the Web server and installing scripts, as well as other modules and service applications like e-mail. A web server that does not use a control panel for managing the hosting account, is often referred to as a "headless" server. Some hosts specialize in certain software or services (e.g. e-commerce, blogs, etc.).

When it comes to server operating systems, Linux is typically the default option. Still, some services offer a choice of Linux or Windows hosting. If you have specific server-side applications that require Windows, such as SQL Server or a custom application written in .NET, then you need to make sure your web host has Windows hosting. But don't let the idea of a Linux host intimidate you. Nowadays, most web hosts offer a graphical interface or a control panel to simplify server administration and website management. Instead of typing at the command line, you'll click easily identifiable icons.

Getting your website off the ground requires a great web hosting service. In our evaluation of web hosting providers, we looked at key features that make for a positive web hosting experience and compared the leading providers in the industry. The factors we considered included uptime, website builders, and eCommerce integration. Read on to learn more about the features you should look at when determining which provider and plan is best for you.

17. SiteGroundThe competitive edge of SiteGround is its expertise in all types of Linux-tailored web hosting, as the company offers great plans for cloud, share, reseller, and dedicated hosting buyers. Carefully tailored enterprise hosting plans will also be available to corporate users, made flexible so that they could meet their specific needs and expectations. A reason why experts often recommend SiteGround are security precautions, as it provides a number of safeguarding measures, including the add-on HackAlert Monitoring ($1/month), the antispam software tools SpamAssassin and SpamExperts, IP address blocklists, and hotlink protection. At the moment, SiteGround hosts over 350,000 sites worldwide. You may also be interested to know that it supports ecommerce applications like Magento, osCommerce, and Prestashop.

BigCommerce is a bit different from our other hosting plans in that it's a SaaS (software-as-a-service) provider instead of an IaaS (infrastructure-as-a-service) provider. In other words, rather than renting space on a virtual machine where you setup and configure your own site, BigCommerce provides you with an app you login to that creates and online store.

You could think of the sites that share your server as your roommates; there's really not that much separating you from them. Sure, you can close the bedroom door, but they can still cause nightmares for you in the kitchen and the bathroom. In web hosting terms, all the sites share a single server's resources, so huge traffic spike on Site A may impact the neighboring sites' performances. It's even possible that another site could take down the shared server altogether, if it crashed hard enough.
One's website is placed on the same server as many other sites, ranging from a few sites to hundreds of websites. Typically, all domains may share a common pool of server resources, such as RAM and the CPU. The features available with this type of service can be quite basic and not flexible in terms of software and updates. Resellers often sell shared web hosting and web companies often have reseller accounts to provide hosting for clients.
Investing in a virtual private server, or VPS hosting, can be a nice middle ground between shared and dedicated server hosting. As is the case with shared hosting, a VPS host hosts multiple sites per server, but fewer sites are on each server. This raises the cost, but it’s still less expensive than most managed web hosting services or renting your own dedicated server.
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To host a website on the internet, an individual or company would need their own computer or server.[7] As not all companies had the budget or expertise to do this, web hosting services began to offer to host users' websites on their own servers, without the client needing to own the necessary infrastructure required to operate the website. The owners of the websites, also called webmasters, would be able to create a website that would be hosted on the web hosting service's server and published to the web by the web hosting service.
Virtual private server (VPS) or cloud hosting can be a good middle-of-the-road option between the lowest pricing (shared servers) and highest reliability (dedicated servers). A VPS is a physical server that usually has multiple sites hosted on it. However, it’s much more sophisticated than shared servers in its ability to distribute server resources – and it carries a lighter price tag than for dedicated hosting.
Because Amazon‘s free web hosting tier doesn’t offer many of the features some of the other web hosts mentioned here do, it may serve us better to look at the pricing surrounding their paid services. We published an article covering Amazon Web Services’s flexible pay-as-you-go model for its cloud infrastructure service. For businesses that don’t want to commit large chunks of their budgets to hosting in the long term, AWS might be a good fit. However, the host does come in as the most expensive option on our list.